Syria: A global dance of diplomacy

Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of "Globalistan" (2007), "Red Zone Blues" (2007), "Obama does Globalistan" (2009) and "Empire of Chaos" (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is "2030", also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov speak at their joint press conference in Moscow on May 7, 2013. (AFP Photo / Kirill Kudryavtsev) / AFP

It’s tempting to assume Israel’s bombing of Syria may have led geopolitical players to start behaving as adults.

US Secretary of State John Kerry met Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu before landing in Moscow to meet President Putin.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was in Amman – and then
forward to Damascus. British Prime Minister David ‘of Arabia’
Cameron will also meet Putin in Sochi. Next week, Qatar's Foreign
Minister will be in Tehran.

What does this diplomatic dance mean? From an Obama
administration point of view, it’s still the same game: “Assad
must go,” as the President himself stressed many times, and
Moscow must give way. Wishful thinking, of course; even Kerry,
after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, seems to have
realized which way the (desert) wind is blowing.

Here I interpreted the choices Obama had before
the Israeli bombing. It’s (relatively) safe to assume that the
Obama administration may have abandoned the no-fly zone option, at
least for now. The notion that Obama – or Cameron, or Israel –
would be able to intimidate Putin comes straight from Alice in
Wonderland.

The Iranian angle

Yes, it’s always about Iran. Those plush abodes of
armchair-generals – also known as US Think Tankland – are abuzz
with the wishful thinking that Iran’s regional influence is
declining because of the NATO-GCC-Israel-supported civil war in
Syria. It’s not that simple.

On Monday, Ankara started military exercises on the
Turkish-Syrian border. There’s no question Salehi and Davutoglu
will be talking about this sooner rather than later.

The ultimate red line for Tehran is Assad remaining in power in
Damascus. For the moment, there’s absolutely no evidence his
government is collapsing.

Anyone even remotely familiar with the Middle East, especially
in Tehran, knows Washington’s agenda in Syria – inbuilt in the
Bush-Obama continuum. It’s all about divide and rule centered on
sectarianism – as Seymour Hersh already detailed. A major plank
of this strategy, of course, is the (never acknowledged) support of
hardcore Islamists, once again in this case reverted to the
Reaganesque status of ‘freedom
fighters.’

Tehran also clearly sees how this process has led the House of
Saud to be embedded with Israel – and vice-versa. In the current
situation, the plum tomato in the kebab is the new Defense
Crescent, leaked to Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times in
London, linking Israel, GCC members Saudi Arabia and the UAE,
Jordan and Turkey to “counter Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

So if Iran-Syria-Hezbollah – with the Maliki government in
Baghdad added for good measure – is regarded by many in the
pan-Arab street as the axis of resistance, the counterattack
centered in Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh can easily be defined
as the axis of neocolonialism (axis of puppets, perhaps?)

What is Qatar up to?

US Think Tankland’s wet dreams of an Assad government collapse –
or reduced to the status of a ‘non-state actor’ – obviously
eschew the possibility of Salafi-jihadi outfits getting the
political upper hand in Syria. If that happens, and that’s a major
if, it’s clear these medieval outfits may become even more
ferocious towards the GCC petromonarchies, Israel and Turkey than
towards Iran.

It’s a safe bet that Salehi told the Jordanians as much during
his visit. Tehran’s strategists see very clearly that in a
post-Assad setting, the police state run by King Playstation – who
gets away with anything in the West because he speaks perfect
English – would become either another Muslim Brotherhood fiefdom or
a mini-emirate.

But the really juicy relationships in all this mess are between
Tehran and both Doha and Ankara. Tehran knows that nothing can be
done regarding the House of Saud, whose hatred of Shia is
pathological. But Tehran can certainly discuss with the Qataris and
the Turks what the fallout of hardcore Sunni/Wahhabi intolerance
and homicidal fury in Syria would mean for
them.

Qatar will keep playing a double game. Prince Khalifa al-Thani
is visiting Israel in November – a first for a Qatari
royal. This is not exactly going down well among
millions of committed anti-Zionists all across the Arab
world.

It should not be forgotten that Qatar has always been a
cheerleader of Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, who after years in Doha
now shines in Cairo as the head of the International Union of
Muslim Scholars. Al-Qaradawi has been a great cheerleader of the
jihad against Assad in Syria.

Syrian nationalist commanders (yes, they do exist) blame Qatar
for remote-controlling large swathes of the ‘rebels.’ Doha’s
objective: An Islamic state in Syria, what else? Not exactly an
agenda endearing Doha to Washington, even though they’re apparently
in bed together; the US-approved Syrian National Coalition – a
Muslim Brotherhood-infested outfit – is remote-controlled by
Qatar.

In Absurdistan terms, this ranks close to the House of Saud,
Turkey, Jordan and Qatar covertly weaponizing the ‘rebels,’
with the CIA having a ‘consulting role’ to ensure the weapons go to
secular and moderate outfits.

Qatar denies everything; a golden rule of real journalism is
never to believe anything until the official denial. According to
Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, “We are not
looking for a role just for us… We are looking for a pan-Arab
role.” Qatar may be fooling Washington, but it’s certainly not
fooling Damascus, Tehran or Moscow.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.